Changing perception of home-schooling, 27 May 2007, Jackson Clarion Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi [Felicia Bell] said her son, like many home-schooled children, doesn’t fit the stereotype of the sheltered homebody.

“I want to change the perception of home-schooling,” she said. “So many people think our children sit at home 2 4/7 and hardly go outside. That’s not us. When he’s finished (with lessons), he hits the door.”

When R’Daniel is not studying at the table beside his mother’s refrigerator, he participates in the First Lego League, the Mississippi Gem and Mineral Society and 4-H. He volunteers at the Agricultural and Forestry Museum.

Bell, a single mother of two, is also a member of a handful of home-school support groups, or cooperatives, that provide her with assistance when she needs it.

Conspicuous in its absence in the 2007 Legislature was legislation to tighten laws regarding home schooling.This is an election year, and parents having the easy ability to take their kids out of school is a hot-button issue – perhaps explaining the nonexistence. Call it an “excused” absence, perhaps.

But it should be more carefully studied, and state Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds is doing so, to determine if the state should take action.

Superintendent Bounds got the attention of Jackson homeschoolers last December.

Since all the December letters (that I found) were from the Jackson Clarion Ledger, I would say that Superintendent Hank Bounds’s announcement about proposed homeschoollegislation to control the “free rein” that homeschooling parents in Mississippi enjoy hit a nerve.

When kids who can’t even read are graduating from high school, it seems the public schools have serious shortcomings to overcome. State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds and House Education Committee chairman Rep. Cecil Brown need to understand that government doesn’t always have to get involved in every aspect of our lives and that parents should have a “free rein” in constructive areas of their child’s life.

State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds insinuates in an article that he believes the majority of home-school parents are doing a good job teaching their children (“Home-school quandary: ” ‘Free rein’ concerns state ed chief,” Dec. 13). If so, then why create more regulations? Laws and regulations are for the majority of people to follow. And if most of the people are apparently already doing what they are supposed to, we need no new regulation.

With homeschooling providing high-quality academic and socialization results at a lower cost – the average per-student cost for homeschooling is $546 vs. $5,325 for public schools), The Clarion-Ledger should be promoting homeschooling rather than reinforcing ill-informed misconceptions.

But Hank Bounds, state superintendent of education, says that “free rein” also allows parents to let their children become dropouts.

He said some dropouts start with disgruntled parents who get angry with school officials and pull their kids out of school with no intention of ever schooling them. He thinks the state should consider a stronger role in that. He is pulling together a panel of home-school parents to talk about what – if any – that role should be.

A day after House and Senate leaders spent almost eight hours debating whether the state could afford the school funding formula, the Board of Education announced the estimate would drop by more than $30 million.

Last month, an education columnist in Mississippi responded to a letter from the mother of a first grade student who wasn’t happy with a classroom event. The columnist told the mother that she would just have to, in the parlance of the long-ago Edwardians, ‘close her eyes and think of England.’

Jackson Clarion Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi, 19 December 2005, Teachers making up storm days after school(Google cache, and headline concerns columns’ main report)

Q: I am not happy with something that happened in my first-grader’s classroom. I would really like my daughter moved out of there. I’ve talked to the principal, who said he talked to the teacher. I also talked to the superintendent. But they refuse to move my daughter. What is my recourse?

A: There really isn’t a lot you can do after talking to the principal and the superintendent. The next step is to talk to local school board members. See what you have to do to get on the agenda for the next board meeting.

This week, a Clarion Ledger reader asked why the columnist didn’t recommend that the mother either sue the school, or remove her daughter from school and homeschool her. The reply?

A: I was trying to give her options within the system. But, yes, these are other options, albeit a little more drastic.

Drastic. Homeschooling is a drastic option. That reminds me of a grad-school thesis I recently came across in a Google search ‘for something else’ (I find so much stuff that way): Home-schooling as an extreme form of parental involvement. In skimming the thesis, neither I, nor another member of the list where I posted the link, could find any "extremism" in the findings of the paper, yet the author still chose that title.

It seems that the general opinion concerning the center point of parental involvement in the lives of their children has moved from the responsible center of the parenting continuum, between the true extremes of abandonment and smothering. For some in today’s world, even the idea of a parent taking natural adult responsibility concerning his or her children, and nurturing and guiding those children, is "drastic" and "extreme." What a shame.

I like the conclusion of another list-member who took the "extreme" conclusion, and spun it so that homeschooling is X-treme schooling. That fits with my experience of homeschooling as a Grand Adventure.